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Too Much Yelling in Climate Change Debate

The Obama administration’s climate report issued this week has set off another round of climate yelling. Heavy sigh. Somewhere behind all the politics there is some extremely complicated science that most people (including those doing most of the yelling) know little or nothing about. Surveys repeatedly show most people’s views on climate change are related to their political affiliation, suggesting that most of the public debate (if yelling qualifies as debate) is actually regurgitated political dogma instead of science. It is often said that everyone is entitled to their opinion and I have no quarrel with that. But opinion argued so vehemently ought, it seems to me, to be based on something more substantive than a politically based worldview. Science is not easy. It converges on truth in incremental steps. Politics is not easy, either. It converges on policy through compromise. Yelling back and forth is unhelpful to either process. Meteorologist John Wheeler